COVERSTORY
GM CEO Mary Barra in a 2017
Chevrolet Bolt EV at the 2016 North
American International Auto
Show in Detroit.
AUTO
© 2016 BLOOMBERG FINANCE LP
PILOT
CEO Mary Barra
revs things up
at General Motors
44 The Costco Connection APRIL 2017
BY TOM BEAMAN
MARY BARRA was born the day before
Christmas 1961, the daughter of a
General Motors tool and die maker and
a part-time bookkeeper.
Barra’s interest in cars led her to
the General Motors Institute (now
Kettering University) in Flint, Michigan,
where she earned a degree in electrical
engineering in 1985. She later received
an MBA from Stanford University.
Barra’s GM jobs ranged from an
engineer in the Pontiac Fiero assembly
plant to senior vice president of global
product development. She was named
CEO in January 2014 and chairman of
the board of directors in January 2016.
Later that year, Forbes magazine named
Barra the fifth most powerful woman in
the world. She is the first woman to
lead a U.S. automaker.
Two weeks after Barra became CEO
she faced a challenge that would define
her early tenure—a recall of faulty ignition switches that was to involve 2.6
million vehicles and cost the company
over $2 billion. In testimony before
Congress and in messages to customers and employees, Barra took responsibility for the recall and committed to
learning why it took years for the issue
to come to light. She created the new
position of vice president of global vehicle safety, hired a former U.S. attorney
to conduct an investigation of the company’s actions leading up to the recall
and established procedures for customers to repair or replace affected vehicles.
In September 2014, Fortune magazine wrote, “[Barra’s] approach is
modest and audacious at the same
time: She proposes to alter the mindset
by behaving differently every day than
any GM CEO has behaved in decades,
and through her example and a CEO’s
influence, to change the way everyone
else behaves every day.”
Seven years after exiting bankruptcy, GM today appears to be firing
on all cylinders. The company, whose
brands include Chevrolet, Buick, GMC
and Cadillac, sold 10 million vehicles
THE COSTCO CONNECTION: Did you ever
see yourself in the CEO’s chair?
MARY BARRA: No, I did not. I liked the
strategic parts of the business and leading
teams, but never saw myself in the CEO’s chair
until shortly before I was offered the opportunity. I really feel honored to lead the men and
women of General Motors.
CC: How do you describe GM’s corporate
culture and how is it different from 10 years ago?
MB: We’ve been on a journey for the last 10
years to become a very customer-focused culture
that understands we don’t win until the customer
says we win. We’re much more agile and move
with a sense of urgency. We’re focused on the
leadership behaviors we have to demonstrate
every day to get to that culture of speed and
accountability and customer focus.
CC: How do you know what kind of cars
buyers are going to want in 20 years or even
five years?
MB: If you put the customer in the center of
every decision and say, ‘How can I solve customer
pain points or how can I improve the ownership
and driving experience?’ and then leverage the
technology and the knowledge we have in the
company, we can create vehicles and experiences
worldwide in 2016, generating $9.43
billion in net income. The electric
Chevrolet Bolt EV was named 2017
North American Car of the Year.
To stake its claim in the growing
“mobility” space, GM last year launched
the Maven car-sharing service and
announced a long-term strategic alliance with ridesharing service Lyft to
create a network of on-demand autonomous vehicles in the U.S. The company plans to invest $1 billion in the
U.S. in 2017 and to add more than
5,000 new jobs in the next few years.
And just last month, she took the
bold step of selling off GM’s struggling
European Opel and Vauxhall brands to
refocus on GM’s core business.
Barra was recently tapped by
President Trump to serve as an economic adviser—a role that will allow
her to be the voice of the auto industry
in critical decisions affecting the industry. She spoke to The Costco Connection
from GM headquarters in Detroit. The
following are edited excerpts.
and the future that the customer maybe can’t
clearly articulate today, but when they get here
they’re going to say, ‘This is exactly what I needed.’
CC: What are the leading technical advances
that we’ll be seeing in future GM cars?
MB: We have a strong foundation in connectivity because we’ve had OnStar in GM products
for over 20 years. At the end of last year almost 12
million GM vehicles around the globe had 4G LTE.
The Bolt EV from Chevrolet is a great example of
electrification. You can go 238 miles on a charge,
it’s affordable and it has great performance and
functionality. We’re also working very aggressively on autonomous vehicles for very specific
urban or sharing situations. Think about autonomous vehicles being able to pick you up and drop
you off and then you don’t have to go through the
frustration of getting from point A to point B. We
believe autonomous vehicles in the right environment can not only add value to the customer but
can make the driving experience safer.
CC: GM has appointed a chief compliance
officer to oversee a corporate code of conduct you
call “Winning with Integrity.” Tell us about that.
MB: Setting the right tone at the top with our
“Winning with Integrity” code of conduct is a
CONTINUED ON PAGE 46
MEMBERINFO
NAME Mary Barra, CEO
and Chairman; @mtbarra
COMPANY
General Motors Company
EMPLOYEES 225,000
HEADQUARTERS
Detroit
WEBSITE gm.com
QUOTE ABOUT COSTCO
“I am a proud Costco member.
We get The Connection every
month and I always look
through it.”—Mary Barra
Costco members can purchase
a variety of vehicle brands—
including General Motors—
through the Costco Auto
Program. For more information
about the program and the
dealer vetting process, please
see the article on page 105.
APRIL 2017 The Costco Connection 45
AUTO PILOT
CONTINUED FROM PAGE 45
CC: GM just gave a $250,000 grant to
the national nonprofit group Girls Who
Code. What is that and why did you do it?
MB: It’s pretty well documented that
women are not entering the technical fields
as quickly as men, specifically in coding.
Learning to code, even if you’re not going to
do it for the rest of your life, is fundamental.
Girls Who Code understands that young girls
start to veer away from math and science in
middle school. This very effective program
engages middle school girls with clubs and
teaches them how to code but also links it to
what they’re passionate about. One of the
girls coded an app to help fight bullying.
Another did something related to the Zika
virus. By the time they get to high school
they’re engaged and then it flows through to
college. Girls Who Code is a very important
partnership because not only is it the right
thing to do for society, but we are going to
need more and more technical talent in the
company and we need to make sure that the
entire population is learning the skill sets to
have access to really good-paying jobs.
efficient as possible, using
new technology and daily
diligence to conserve electricity. The next step is to
make sure we are procuring
more renewable energy. We
recently purchased wind
power that was equal to the
electricity needs of 16 of our
U.S. facilities. We’re also
going to continue to develop
battery energy storage
options to address the intermittent challenges we have with some renewable
energy, like wind and solar, to make sure
we have uniform powering for our facilities. We will be collaborating with utilities,
policy makers, government officials and
renewable energy developers in a team
effort to drive the scale we need to do this.
is not on the soccer field I’m responding
to emails or reading documents. I think
it’s about setting priorities and realizing
that sometimes the most urgent is not the
most important.
CC: What leaders inspire you?
MB: I have been fortunate to have many
mentors throughout my career, too many
to name. The people I admire the most are
my parents, neither of whom went to college. They both worked hard, and were born
and raised in the Depression. They taught
me the power of following your passion and
that there’s no substitute for hard work.
They couldn’t have been more supportive
of my brother and me.
CC: How do you maintain work-life
balance?
MB: I’ve been married for 31 years
and I have a wonderful husband and two
children. It’s about being there for the
most important things. I’m a soccer mom
and a hockey mom and a cross-country
mom. I try to be at all the events that are
important to my children. When my child
CC: Why should young women and men
want to work in the auto industry?
MB: Because it’s so exciting. Right now
we’re seeing more change than we’ve seen
in the last 50 years. For most people, the
most important purchases you make are
a car and a home. It’s a fashion statement
and a technology statement. People name
their cars! We feel very special that we get
to participate in one of these very important purchases in someone’s life.
Mary Barra and the 2016 Chevrolet Bolt
at the North American International Auto
Show in Detroit.
© LARRY W. SMITH / EPA/REX / SHUTTERSTOCK
CC: GM has committed to using 100
percent renewable energy to power its 350
facilities worldwide by 2050. How will you
do that?
MB: The path to get to 100 percent
renewable energy is first to make sure that
everything we do that uses energy is as
GM CEO Mary Barra (left)
and Girls Who Code founder
and CEO Reshma Saujani at
GM’s headquarters.
© 2017 SANTA FABIO AND GENERAL MOTORS.
daily reminder to all of our [225,000]
employees around the globe that, yes, we
want to win and work hard and be passionate, but we need to do it the right way even
when it’s hard.
46 The Costco Connection APRIL 2017
CC: What do you want your legacy at
GM to be?
MB: I believe in the men and women of
General Motors. They are some of the most
dedicated, hardworking, creative, talented
people. General Motors [can] create solutions that allow people to have safer, better,
simpler lives and to solve some of the issues
that are tagged on the auto industry, like
congestion and the environment. My goal
is to improve the way people get from point
A to point B and to do it in a way that’s
responsible and makes the world a better
place and improves the environment. C
Costco member Tom Beaman is a freelance
writer in Rochester Hills, Michigan.